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Paul DiFillipo posts his essay on sf author Michael Bishop as it appeared in the 2003 reference work The Scribner Writers Series: Supernatural Fiction Writers. “A talent capable of being decanted into many different molds, genre and otherwise, Bishop’s skills and vision translate from one medium to another without diminishment or concealment.” [via Matt Cheney]

The Great Eric muses about The Sin of High School English Class, or Why He Hates Classic Literature. “Starship Troopers taught me more about fascism than pretty much anything else I’ve ever read, because it’s the only book that forced me to think about it on a higher level than ‘Hitler is evil!’ “

Kylopod discusses the myth of the fantasy genre. ” ‘Fantasy’ is a funny name for a genre. The word suggests make-believe. All fiction is make-believe, but fantasy deals specifically with events that not only didn’t happen, but couldn’t happen. We, the readers, allow our minds to enter a universe that we know could never exist. The books tap into some part of our subconscious where rationality has not penetrated, and for a brief period of time we “believe” in magic. The genre is not about exploring possibilities, as science fiction does, but about losing ourselves in impossibilities. As Orson Scott Card put it in his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, ‘science fiction is about what could be but isn’t; fantasy is about what couldn’t be’ “

Holy Calamity looks at Dan Dare, Pilot of the Paleo-Future. “Dan Dare went on to have as massive an impact on British science fiction and comic as you’d expect from a magazine selling two million copies a week.”

1 Comment on SF Tidbits for 7/21/07

It is merely a pity that she places her muse in the service of feminism, which is, after all, a rather peevish, unjoyful, and self-centered religion. Like the other members of her religion, she has to periodically interrupt her narrative to genuflect to her gods, and to scorn mine:

I am really not interested enough to read one of John c Wright’s books to find out what his gods are…anyone want to illuminate me?